Better Days To Come
by Gaslight
Summary: Two people at the mercy & command of others. The only thing to be done is make the best of it. Sequel to The Gift. Eudorus & OFC.
1. Dianeira I

**Better Days To Come**

Summary: Sequel to The Gift. Dianeira & Eudorus adjust to each other as slave & master in short vignettes. Eudorus & OFC.

Note: To recap, Odysseus took a drunk Eudorus to Agamemnon's ship for the feast of kings, and when Eudorus left, he ran into a slave woman who was tossed from the ship by an irate guard when he caught her and Briseis trying to escape. Eudorus brought the woman back to camp and Achilles gave her to him; Eudorus would rather not accept, but can't refuse. He and another Myrmidon, Tydeus, had abused a captive girl past the point of suicide years earlier during a drunken, post-battle binge and he does not trust himself that those impulses have been fully conquered. At the end of the story, Eudorus sees the night's events not as something to be feared, but a chance to redeem himself for his past crime. He takes the woman back to her nearby farm and helps her bury her dead husband and, hopefully, his guilt.

The story will have alternating viewpoints with each short chapter.

* * *

**Chapter 1**

_Dianeira_

He puzzles me.

Clearer eyes I have never seen in man, woman or child. I have been told of seas that are so pristine, so flawless, that one can see the turtles and fish swimming beneath and see the scatter spray of shells and corals, dazzling in their colorful beauty. Riveting clarity, piercing and stark.

Such are his eyes. Sometimes I glimpse a hurting truth within their depths, but he is ever alert and watchful. When he catches me watching him, he kicks at the sand and the pools are obscured. I have learned to be furtive in my observations, but it is so very difficult. He is a soldier, trained to be wary and ready to sense action and threat. I am only a simple farmer's wife and am cursed with a slowness of mind. What do we do besides work and watch and wait? Crops to grow, stock to tend. Our days are frantic, scurrying about like unquestioning, busy little ants, our only occupation that of feeding ourselves and our betters.

I _was_ a farmer's wife. My dear husband is dead, buried by my hands. And his, this man who holds my freedom and life.

He took me back to my farm when he learned of my husband's fate. We walked through the night, arriving as dawn soaked the horizon with a bloody aurora. My Krios was still there, slaughtered and left to rot above ground in the wrecked remains of the livestock shed. This man's people, the Myrmidons, had laid waste to the meager holdings that Krios and I had spent our short married life building. As much as I loved my husband, it wounded me more to see the smoking ruins of our home, the scorched skeletal structures tilting precariously at bizarre angles. They looked so miserable that I wanted to rush to them and push them over, if only to do the damage myself rather than let them be victim any longer to foreign forces.

I do not remember much else of that morning beyond looking into the ugly, death-disfigured face of my husband. What wife could erase such an image of one beloved? He was nary recognizable, a bloated, disgusting thing that made me scream, then weep.

I hear the keening wail even now, but I do not recall what happened afterward. I know I did not faint, I am proud to say. Krios would have chided me that I had been so frail as to weep, appalled if I had keeled over into the dust like a starved lily. He was a stiff and unemotional man, not wanting to be made a fuss of. I had indulged him for some years, been the strong and imperturbable wife who met crop disasters and the death of newborn babes with a stoic air. There was always work to be done, always neighbors worse off than ourselves. No time for self-pity, no time for weakness.

My cry of pain, of agony, was a bittersweet pleasure. I had lost him, but how good it felt to let my wound be free and bleeding openly, rather than smothered and staunched from public view. That one of the breed who had killed my husband was the only witness, I cared not.

I have spoken falsely; I do remember more of that morning. My cry still resounds in my ears, and I see before me my weary hands piling the final remnants of dirt on a grave that I never envisioned digging. But my hands are not alone. His were there as well, as dirty as mine, as weary yet determined as mine. We pushed mounds of earth against each other, digging and scraping. He had left me briefly to search for a spade, but he returned empty-handed. Did I weep then? Did I, grief-stricken, insist we put my husband to rest even if we had to break our fingers in the dry earth to do it? I don't remember. All I know is that he dropped to his knees, set to work, and made a widow's sleep more peaceful.

As I sit here in the Greek camp, in a makeshift hut on the beach head, I often find myself wondering why he was so caring, so dedicated to seeing buried a man he never knew, yet he cannot bring himself to look at me.

He does not want me, and I do not want him. Achilles, The Lion Among Greeks, thrust me into this man's care, his ownership. A gift! I have been the property of too many men before two suns had risen, passed from hand to hand through circumstances never of my own making. I am weary of it, but my husband's counsel often comes to me and says that I have already passed the worst and despair is pointless. "Leave it be!" he would say. "What is done is done!" How callous, how cruel that can sound, but it is all the assurance I have to comfort me, for it is true.

The soreness in my body is fastly fading, the rapes now in the past. I pray.

I pray there will be no more, no more of men setting themselves upon me like slavering dogs, and I pray that I am not carrying the sprout of a bastard seed. It is too early to tell, and I wonder what I will do on the day I discover such an ugly reality. I am a better farmer than I am a mother. Nothing that has ever taken root in my womb has survived. That used to be cause for lament; now I treasure that poisoned soil. But ill luck has fallen upon me in torrents of late, and the gods are fickle. It is possible that the divine Olympians decided my belly should finally produce something alive and strong!

But I can no longer think upon it. There are always things to do, even in a Greek encampment. These barbarian invaders do not loll about in dissolute pleasure and debauchery. They are not the weaklings our braggart priests and officials proclaim, not mediocre warriors whose only kills are made by divine intervention or foolish luck. If they are, they are perhaps the luckiest soldiers to ever wield arms. The mourning wails that rise from walled Troy attest to that.

The Greeks will not vanish because Troy wishes it so. They are clinging to the sands, and I am powerless to help remove them. If anything, I am aiding them. Slaves do as they are told and I now understand the distaste for allegiance to any one party. It makes betrayal completely moot.

What am I doing thinking of such weighty matters? There are reed mats to weave, and I must attend to it. My hands are constantly busy and I try to keep my mind similarly active. Rhymes, riddles, and reciting the stories of heroes that were told around the evening fire when I was a child. Simple things. Comforting things.

Anything, anything to bear another day.

The sun is warm upon my neck as I bend it to my task, the salty sea breeze creating a tangy taste on my tongue when I lick my lips in concentration. Whenever my hands grow sore, I look up and rest and watch the roll of the waves and the playful dance of gulls. The water is not blue, but a dull grey, and I wonder if I will ever see those pristine, far away oceans. Will I ever dive beneath the cool waters and skim over the sands?

And what treasures might I find?


	2. Eudorus I

**Chapter 2**

_Eudorus_

She was sitting there, just sitting, as if she were perched on a stool outside the front door of her home, mending a torn piece of clothing. A large reed mat covered her lap, and she worked with a concentration that defied interruption. As if nothing had happened at all.

As if a battle had not been raging only a mile distant, with men from Achaea and Troy falling into a morass made of earth and blood. And two kings, Menelaus and Ajax, destined for a pyre as soon as darkness fell.

I had been rendered into a daze by what I had seen, unprepared for the spectacle of a slaughter -- not of Troy's men, but of ours. Agamemnon would no doubt recover by tomorrow's dawn, coupled with a rage for time untold. There was no doubt in my mind that Troy would fall, perhaps sooner than anyone realized. Its walls were thick, its defenders brave, but Mycenae's ruling house was manned by a wolf and every Trojan would eventually feel avenging jaws about their throats. Menelaus' death would bring the same fate onto many others.

As for Ajax, we all grieved. His death was a blow to us all, rippling out to the very last man that staggered in from the battlefield. We, the Myrmidons, confined to the high bluff as mere spectators, felt it no less. The weight of the loss had already leadened my steps and clouded my thoughts before I reached the encampment, only to find a discordant normalcy among those who had not witnessed the battle.

Ajax, the mightiest of the mighty, a massive bull among men that gave even the most fearless bull-leaper in Crete pause. He was dead, his brutish strength his downfall. Hector of Troy did not himself lack strength, but agility of body and wits he had aplenty, and it was what saved him today. His wife would throw herself at him in relief, and the city would ring with praise of his valor while we burned our dead and mourned.

I wish them all well. Their celebration will be short-lived.

The heat of the sand seeped into my skin, trying to banish the chill that had crept in. The images of battle that were scorched into my mind were not unfamiliar, but that it had come so closely on the heels of Achilles' defiant sacrilege of Apollo's statue! Who else had seen the decapitated god and wondered if our rout and the Trojan victory were linked? Hector had, and I was certain that Priam gloated about the merciful intercession of the Sun God before the last man marched through the gates with a song of personal valor on his lips.

Achilles would have my hide if he knew I shared the superstitions of the king we had been paid to defeat. He had paced behind us, muttering orders to kings below who could not hear him. Could he have turned the tide, had he been in command there on the field? He obviously thought so, and I would swear any oath that he did not believe his offense to Apollo had had any part in the debacle we all witnessed. Agamemnon had blindly moved into the archers' range of fire, allowing hundreds of his men to be spitted. That was all. The failures of today were made by men and men alone. The gods only watch; they do not care. It is best that we press on with what we have to do, and do not wait on them.

Had he been beside me, I would have heard those thoughts, clashing heavily and clattering angrily inside his head. I knew Achilles, and I knew that he would have the same principles that guide him rule our steps as well. He would have it be simple, and yet it is not.

Nothing is simple. Even killing men for gold under the glorious banner of war is not as simple as one would imagine or wish. And the spoils of war are even more complicated.

She looked so untroubled, her fingers moving busily against the reeds, hypnotic in their deft display. Even when she looked up at the sea, her hands only briefly rested. Two large mats already lay on the sands beside her. She had not yet started when I left. Had I been gone so long?

As those fingers continued to fly over the reeds, twisting and weaving, her lips moved just as fast. The sea was quiet, the wind faint, and it carried stray words to my ears. A prayer? Or a song?

She had not laughed or wept since the morning we buried her husband in a shallow, pitiful grave. Her grief did not surprise me then, but her quick resumption of brisk, uncomplaining labor did. She had spoken little, but her eyes were constantly curious and questioning. There had been none of the dull, vacant stare in so many other women, when mind left body, never to return.

I forgot that Patroclus had retreated from the bluff by my side. He had been blessedly silent, and my own thoughts had absorbed me fully but, like all things, that was destined to end.

"Eudorus?" he asked. "We _will_ fight tomorrow? Achilles will not let this defeat stand."

I shrugged, declining to venture a look at him. He would try to seize on whatever expression, however slight, and interpret it as clumsily as a charlatan oracle. I already knew what he wanted to ask of me. He had already done so many times since Achilles forced him to remain aboard while the rest of us charged ashore.

"Speak to Achilles," he pressed. "Make him see that he has to fight tomorrow."

"Why do you think that Achilles somehow owes me that he bend his ear every time I open my mouth?" I snapped, still resolutely looking forward. "You know that he will refuse to fight until that priestess is again in his hands and Agamemnon begs forgiveness."

"But the tactics!" he sputtered. "Agamemnon's failure to fight wisely must have offended him. He would not want that to happen again. He has no argument with the men from other realms."

The hot sand had ceased its kind warmth, pushing me instead into hot irritability. "He has already heard me out on the matter."

"And he has heard me."

"Then there it is!" I stopped him with an outstretched arm and spared him an apologetic glance. "The vast part of war is sitting and waiting. You should already know that, and the reasons can range from the inevitable to the arbitrary. You will have to learn to accept them all until you are in a position to dictate the large matters." I could see that his acceptance was reluctant, but he was listening.

"Change what you are able," I continued. "And be ready to act when everyone else has finished playing their games."

He smiled and left, heading to some unknown mission with my words hopefully in mind, though I was not inclined to wager on it.

"Foolish fear doubles danger...Denying a fault doubles it...Richest is he who wants least..."

My agitated conversation with Patroclus had led me closer to her, and the wind further obliged me by carrying her words more clearly. Not a prayer, or a song, but rather a recitation of pithy wisdoms.

"He has hard work who has nothing to do...A grain of prudence is worth a pound of craft...It costs more to revenge a wrong than--"

Her fingers fumbled at the loose reed, but she did not quickly resume herwork. The sea seemed to capture her attention, only briefly, before she bent her head to her task again with a muttered oath.

"--than to bear it," she finished, shoving the end of the reed into the weave and reaching to grab another one from the pile beside her with smooth efficiency. As she did so, she saw me from the corner of her eye and looked up.

"You are burning," I said, the first words out of my mouth surprising me with their randomness. Her nose had acquired a rosy glow, and it had begun to fan out across her cheeks.

She laid a palm against her face and her fingers danced at the hot flush that met them. "So I am. But these need to be done and I am almost there."

With renewed vigor, she took the reed and began to weave again, pausing when I drew closer.

"Did I give you this task?" I asked. "I can't remember."

She shook her head, still intently focused. I noticed that her fingers did not bleed, as another less-practiced in the art would suffer. "I was told to make these to repair the camp of King Ajax."

"He was slain this morning." That I spoke such wretched news so calmly did much to ease my troubled mind about the effect his death might have on the morale of all Greeks.

Again, her work ceased only briefly. "Someone will need them, since the Salamian king now does not. I was told the walls of his camp were broken by a drunken brawl last night. There will be another such mishap before you leave these shores."

She made her pronouncement with such resigned confidence that I instinctively felt compelled to deny it, but realized it would sound childishly defensive.

"You need not be so diligent," I instead pointed out. "There are many slaves who will take advantage of it and let you shoulder their work."

The look I received made it clear that I had insulted her. Her light grey eyes darkened slightly in peeved distress and she tugged the mat sharply in an odd affirmation that the task was hers alone and that none could do it better.

I knew little of mat weaving, and she convinced me from one look alone that the craft contained mysteries which would forever be beyond my knowledge. I demurred and gestured for her to continue. "Work half done is twice begun," I said. "Finish the mats and do with them as you wish."

I turned and left, knowing there was a myriad of matters that demanded my own attention. I could not pass the time of day any longer and pretend that there was purpose to it.

Yet I had not gone far before I looked over my shoulder. She had bent her head to her work, the swarm of slaves and soldiers around her seeming to bother her little.

I wondered why I had not stayed, at least for a while longer. The sand had slowly regained its pleasant warmth, and had I taken a seat on the other side of the finished mats, I might have learned more of her riddles and rhymes or simply watched her hands plying their trade. There were no solid results from watching her, but the tension had already begun to drain from me.

From where I stood, the expanse of reed mat that would have separated us looked peaceable and right. Perhaps later. For now, I must see to soldiers, stores, and strategies.

For a captain's work is never done.

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Thank you, ConcreteHole & LC for your reviews! I can always count on you. 3

Dianeira's recitations come from "An Alphabet of Virtues" from an issue of The Household: A Monthly Journal Dedicated to the Interests of the American Housewife (1870), a nifty item I picked up in the library trash in college. Some Victorian housewife had created her own volume of them by putting wallpaper on cardboard, punching holes in the issues, and looping them together with ribbon. Librarians thought it was trash, but it's a vintage treasure. :)


	3. Dianeira II

_Sorry for the delay. I hope it is worth the wait._

**Chapter 3**

_Dianeira II_

"You're tired."

My startled look could have said one of two things: surprise that he had noticed, or surprise that he would speak of it. I knew I must look horrible - it had been a trial of long days and wakeful nights - and little escaped his attention, but voicing his observations was different.

"Actually, I'm quite rested," I lied, reaching up and tilting the dangling candle pot slightly so that he could see me in the deepening dusk. The interior of the hut had already grown quite dark and I knew before he spoke that he would tell me to stop mending the tunics that lay heaped in a pile beside me.

I gently let go of the candle and steadied it so as not to be scalded by hot wax. "I have only a little left to mend on this one," I said, my head already bent low, eyes straining in the dim light.

He crouched before me and held out a bowl of food while his free hand grabbed the tunic and pulled it out of my protesting grip.

"I said I hadn't finished." But I took the bowl while he claimed the worn tunic as a victory. He certainly folded it like some sort of hard-won prize, his expression softening and tolerant. The needle dangled precariously from the thread and I snatched it from tumbling into the sands, certain that it would be my foot to find it, were it ever lost. It was only a piece of hardened wood but the end was incredibly sharp, as I had discovered several times already.

"You have worked yourself to the bone today," he said. "Use what's left of your hands and eat."

I dug my fingers into the sticky mass of barley and olives and scooped some into my mouth. A stomach deprived for hours in pursuit of finishing tasks suddenly screamed out for food and I was torn between stifling the growling with the same hand that went back to the bowl for another scoop of the delicious meal.

"Where are the others?" he asked, looking to the corners of the hut that held the pallets and possessions of the two other men that shared our increasingly stifling domain.

"No battle today," I said around a mouthful of food, "so they went to find provisions."

"That was hours ago."

"Maybe by Agamemnon's ship? They are burning the Spartan king tonight." I swallowed with some difficulty. I always ate too fast when hungry. "Are you going?"

He did not immediately speak, but his eyes regarded me as though I had said something offensive. Blushing, I resumed eating with dedicated restraint.

"It is not some spectacle to gawk at," he accused, turning away. "And not just Menelaus, but Ajax as well. I would give much to have fought by their sides today."

My hand hovered before my mouth, eyes following him as he slowly paced into the darkened half of the hut. If he thought I looked weary, he was more by hundredfold. His shoulders slumped and had little of the proud, rigid bearing I imagined was second nature to a warrior. In here, shut away from the eyes of the others, he shed the air of command that he kept swathed around him as he strode along the beach, seeing to this or that matter that he demanded or was demanded of by another.

It was a secret he kept, this inability to be always strong, and I sensed that he would rather be utterly isolated when his duties were done. The two Myrmidons packed into this hut, along with their women, prevented that. I prevented that. But the Trojan beach was not infinite. Not every man could have his own fortress of wood and hides. He bent to necessity, and, I suspected, felt both pride in comradeship and misery in the sacrifice at the same time.

As he emerged from his brief departure into the shadows, I glimpsed a renewed determination in his bearing, but I could not help but wonder if it was feigned.

My thoughts were apparently plain, my glance too probing, for he shifted in discomfort and there was a hesitation in his step. I expected him to leave and shun my company. He had done it before, yet only that afternoon he had lingered beside me on the shore. Obviously of two minds, he paused and seemed to give the door a longing, guilty rebuff.

I busied myself with scraping the bowl clean with my fingertips and felt compelled to fill the silence, which was broken only by the scuff of his sandals against the sandy floor.

"I've heard of a couple women here starving themselves," I said, "but you will not have that problem." Before I could utter another word, the proof of my sated hunger filled the hut with a rather indelicate sound.

Perhaps it had been my intent to amuse him, at least somewhat. I was bound to him for good or ill, for as long as he wanted to burden himself with me, and it was likely that we would be seeing much of each other for a lamentable long while. The extended period on the beach today had done much to clear my head, the salt sea air invigorating me and making me look forward rather than dwelling on the past. Silence and misery had their undeniable charm, but I had been dining on rather large portions of it lately and a change of course would not only be desirable, but healthy.

I was, above all things, practical.

The startled laugh he gave upon seeing my fist at my chest in an abashed attempt to pound indigestion into submission was unexpected in its honesty. I had heard bemused grunts and dry scoffs from him before when talking with others, perfunctory and quickly forgotten. But this was a true laugh and I felt one of my own bubbling on my lips.

I instantly regretted my coarse ploy when his expression suddenly transformed upon sight of my own mirth, and his entire bearing became distant. Not cold or angry, but withdrawn and distrustful. Of me? Or himself?

Confused, I grappled at the empty bowl and rose to my feet with a muttered remark about washing it. He said nothing, but merely stood aside as I hurried past him and plunged through the leather straps that served as a door.

My nostrils were already wide to receive the welcome night air, but I immediately began to cough from the stench of burning flesh and wood smoke that was crawling along the shore from the region of Agamemnon's ship. The two fallen kings were distant and their fiery departure of most intimate concern to only a few, but everyone was going to bear witness to their consecration in some manner, as I was now experiencing.

I wiped at my eyes, certain the stinging in them was caused by the smoke, and that alone. I grabbed some sand and threw it into the bowl, scrubbing the insides as I trudged down to the shoreline. The constant threat posed by drunken soldiers was never far from my mind and served all the more to hasten my steps.

Luckily, the moon was full and offered a fair view. It was wonderfully deserted and a strange peace was at work in this small corner of the encampment. I could hear shouts and songs both bright and mournful wending their way on the night breeze. Campfires snapped and sparked only a short distance away, the flames illuminating the faces of the men gathered around them. They were no doubt discussing today's battle, the slaughter on the Trojan plain, and wondering if they would fight on the morrow.

It was a decision that hung on Achilles, a man whom I had met only once, a man who held sway over an entire army by his commands or his silence. Even kings ignored his will at their peril, as Agamemnon was discovering. I might be under the sole power of Eudorus, but in turn he was so bound by Achilles. Yet I could feel no pity for whatever doubts or dilemmas he silently struggled with as a result of that bond. His servitude was of his choosing. I had yet to see any evidence that he was forced to follow the quicksilver Myrmidon lion against his will.

The murmurings from the nearest campfire became louder, and I saw two faces turn, my presence discovered. Clutching the clean bowl to my chest, I hurried back to the hut without showing obvious fear. It would only feed them, and I had no intention of becoming a bone with which to pick their teeth after they had finished with me. It would be comforting to believe that my status as the woman of Achilles' second-in-command gave me immunity and security against the designs of others, but that was a leap of faith I was not willing to take.

Darkness greeted me as I re-entered the hut, cutting short my silent heave of relief. The candle had been doused, and my shoulders slumped in surprise and irritation. With a few swipes of my tunic, I dried the bowl and inched forward in the blackness. My foot bumped the pile of tunics and I immediately knew where everything lay. There was nothing else to be done; it was dark and I was tired. Obviously he was, too.

It was his preference to sleep on the side of the pallet nearest the door, for he was sometimes roused at any hour of the night for one reason or another and did not want to crawl over me for obvious reasons. However, I was forced to do so with him now and did it with a grace more noble in intention than execution, landing on my shoulder and nearly sending it into my ear.

"Are you--?"

"Quite!" I snapped, then shifted myself into a more comfortable position.

Silence fell over us as we each kept to our side of the pallet, continuing our mutual, unspoken agreement to not consummate his rights over me. I listened to his breathing, but it never slowed into that cadence that comes with unconsciousness. Nor had my lids fully drooped before the leather straps of the door were slapped aside and the hut was filled with loud whispers and the sounds of clumsy, uncertain steps. Armor creaked and clasps jangled as obedient hands of slaves stripped the bodies of the two Myrmidons. The thick, sweet aroma of wine was on the air, the mourning revels not yet over. They would continue far from the flesh-eating fires and, from the low, insistent moans and growls that had already begun, I would soon be privy to them for yet another night.

The women did not scream or wail, or even softly weep. The sounds that infested my ears were of willing arousal, and I felt myself flushing at again being witness to such intimacy. I was ashamed for those women, but also of myself. It was not the first time I had been privy to this. Tonight was no different than the night before, but the sounds -- a churning, animalistic stew -- bothered me no less.

I could bear it no longer, the fresh memories of my own degradation again laid open and raw, and I fled. Heedless of where my knees and elbows landed, I scurried over him and staggered out of the hut.

He caught me quickly, though I had had no intention of wandering far. The sounds from within were still audible, but mercifully muffled by the sound of the tide and the mounting evening breeze. With it came the distinct earthy smell of an impending storm, the sort that would lash in a frenzy all in its path and break into nothingness within minutes. The moon had been blotted out by the gathering clouds, and the shore was illuminated only by the small campfires.

"Never run off like that again!" Hesitant hands gripped my upper arms and shook me gently.

"I cannot go back in there!" The protest was high, and my ears cringed at the panic that clung to every word. "I cannot hear it for one more night! It is there when I wake and when I sleep! The sounds, the screams…_my screams!_"

The arid heat had gone and been replaced by the queer, saturated wind. It smelled of home, of a tilled field receiving its first drink of the season. How I longed to go back to it, but none of it remained. Only in my memories did it still exist, a small pearl of perfection and peace.

His hands had not left me, the fingers flexing around my upper arms in seeming indecision. I could not see him clearly. We were dark shadows to one another, and I was grateful for the protection the darkness offered. My cheeks had become wet with silent tears and their presence shamed me nearly as much as the horror I had just fled.

The grip was no longer uncertain or hesitant, but strong, like circlets about my arms. With a heavy, hypnotic fluidity I was absorbed into an embrace that seemed to encompass my very soul. It was charged with understanding and a sympathy so palpable, I was rendered as limp as a child's doll, mute and accepting.

I should have been frightened, terrified. After all, it was the raw presence of intimacy that had driven me away only minutes before, yet here I stood wrapped in arms gently intense. But there was no demand, only understanding. For whatever reasons, he understood exactly what maddening demons hounded my hours, and I could sense the heavy weight of years of such a burden upon him, while my own struggle merely numbered in the days. In that moment, I pitied him only slightly less than I pitied myself.

When my cheeks burned hotly beneath my tears, I realized a line had been crossed and the embrace had endured too long. The air around us had suddenly turned heavy, the peculiar scent on the breeze sweeping through me and sending gooseflesh rippling across my skin.

He felt it, too, and I was thrust away. Not roughly, but as if in sudden recollection of a vow or promise. His pulse leapt through his fingers, and I could feel the erratic dance of his blood as his hands fell from my arms. His breath had become shallow, rasping within his throat. I longed to see his face, but the nearest fire was still too distant.

He made to move past me, but I struck out a hand and grasped him at the elbow. "Are you going back in?"

A pause. "No. I cannot," he finally said.

I did not relinquish my grasp, and the tremor that ran through him carried a betraying message. I licked my lips and bit my tongue as I pondered the thoughts that took shape from these congealing fragments of intuition.

"Whose screams torment you?" I asked, feeling a nervous ripple of nausea prod me at the boldness of my demand. "Am I your penance?"

When he did not wrench himself from my grip, I knew his answer.

Another question was already on my lips when a shout came from further down the shore. His name was called, and my startled fingers loosened their hold. He slipped away from me easily and went to meet the summons.

He returned to me shortly, anxious and alert, but about a different matter.

"Achilles has the priestess. I will take you there to help her."

His hand circled my wrist, but there was no longer any hesitancy. He was called upon to serve, and serve he would. His own sorrows had been thrust away, at least for awhile, and I suspected he was glad for the respite.

To tell the truth, mine were momentarily forgotten as well, and I welcomed it.

Yet as we made straightway for Achilles' hut, I had to tell myself that his grip was not at all warm and not at all comforting.


	4. Eudorus II

_Huge thanks to LazyChestnut & ConcreteHole for their feedback and behind-the-scenes encouragement_._ You both help me get stuff written instead of keeping it all in my head._

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**Chapter 4**

_Eudorus II_

"Drink this, my Lady. It will start to dull the pain. You've been roughed up considerable."

"I have no need of it!" Briseis declared, turning away.

I watched as Dianeira sank to her knees beside the disheveled priestess and pulled lank, tangled hair away from a face already tender and swollen from slaps and leering pinches at the hands of Agamemnon's soldiers. Her lip was split and a small trail of caked blood ran down her chin. Briseis shrugged the gesture aside with a brusqueness that had me offended on behalf of the woman graciously trying to set her at comfort and ease.

"Please drink it," Dianeira repeated, showing no signs that she had taken the insulting rebuff to heart. A damp cloth was clutched in one hand and she held it against the priestess' forehead with admirable insistence as her other tried to foist the cup of brew into limp, unresponsive hands.

Briseis bowed her head, burying it in her arms. It was as though all that mattered was hurt and misery, kindness and comfort unwelcome. Or, I suspected, that she would rather ache in silence than admit that she needed care.

"Leave us."

Achilles' voice was low, and within it was a trace of soft impatience. It was an order, and Dianeira wisely interpreted it as such. She rose, her face expressionless as she turned away with unsullied rag and full cup. Achilles brushed past her, making straightway to the object of his stubborn devotion over these past tense days.

Dianeira spared him a glance before moving past me. As she did so, the first hint of her own frustration was betrayed when she threw the cloth over the cup and strode out through the leather flaps of the door with a sharp shrug of her shoulders.

There were no further orders from Achilles, so I ducked out through the door with less visible irritation then Dianeira had shown. As soon as I stepped outside, I saw her standing to the right of Achilles' hut, one hand pressing the cool rag to her back of her neck while she drank deeply from the cup.

She lowered the cup from her lips and tossed the remains into the sands with a snap of her wrist. When she noticed my presence, she said with a wry smile, "I tried, didn't I? The royal would have none of it!"

I inclined my head apologetically. "She will be more accepting in the morning. Tonight, she is not thinking clearly."

"Would that I had suffered as few indignities as she," she muttered. "When we were both prisoners aboard Agamemnon's ship, she was spared while I--" She looked away, up at heavy clouds that had blotted out the moon and stars. The storm had yet to arrive, and I felt a prickling of impatience crawl along my skin at the delay. It would do some damage; any storm always did, and I wanted to know the measure of it instead of this constant anticipation.

The same tense feelings were slowly making themselves known in every corner of my body, and it had nothing to do with the approaching storm. Watching her, the slouched and weary slope of her back and shoulders, the hand that dangled at her side with the cup barely grasped in her fingers, the picture she presented made me want to embrace her again as I had done earlier. As with the storm, something was happening, would happen, and I wanted to know the extent of the damage.

Taking her in my arms had been spontaneous, unthinking. Her confession of her nighttime terrors had sparked my own within me, and we had clung to the other as equals. The dreaded memory of that long-ago girl had intruded eventually, and forced me away, but I was shocked that it had come so late. For the most part, it had been nothing but warm and right.

And she knew. She knew why I slept as I did, why I spent my waking hours as I did, and why I was caring for her as I did. All without a direct confession on my part. It was cowardly to not lay the matter out in words, but words were wasted when the meaning was clear.

'Whose screams torment you?' she had asked. 'Am I your penance?'

_You are, and I will not fail you._

_But I would learn more of you. Please tell me._

"I do not even know your age," I said. "In there, you were as a mother tending a child."

Her hand immediately went to her stomach. "I suppose I was only pretending what might have been," she said, her irritable mood fading. "None of my children survived past the cradle." When I looked away, she sighed. "Just as well. They would have been of an age ripe for slaughter, had any of them lived. I was spared that."

Then, as if she remembered I had asked her about age rather than issue, she added, "More than twenty and less than thirty, I expect. Krios took me to wife at eleven; he was elder by some years. I do remember that exactly. Since then, it has been harvests and reminders that our home would ever be the two of us."

It was the longest she had ever spoken to me, or anyone that I was aware of. There was also a creeping warmth in every word, as though she was reacquainting herself with her life before being ripped from her hearth and forced to bed and tend to strangers. There was no obvious sorrow, but rather a wondering tone in recalling such an uneventful past as child bride and farmer's wife.

Here, alert in the darkness, she was not tormented by nightmares of a vulnerable mind. Her tongue had loosened, and I felt the urge to gift her honesty with some of my own.

"Dia--"

"Do you think they have finished?" she asked wearily, referring to our co-habitors. "I need rest."

"Most likely," I replied, unsure whether I should be glad of her interruption. My words had been impetuously ill-formed and would have no doubt sounded clumsy and at odds with my intentions.

She stuffed the rag into the cup and approached me. The nearby campfire flared as a small gust brought it to bright, fervent life. Shadows clung to her eyes, which were slightly hooded from the effects of the brew she had drunk, and her face looked more drawn and pinched than in the light of day. But for all that, her tread was still light, and she graced me with another wry smile on her broad mouth.

"They may have finished, but how many hours left until dawn?" she asked. Clearly, she did not expect to get much rest.

"Enough," I assured her. "And beyond. You may sleep all of tomorrow, if you wish."

She blinked in surprise, and the corners of her mouth tugged downward as her eyes flashed in suspicion. Understandable if she suspected a motive.

Then, her tense features relaxed, a sight that gladdened me more than I would have imagined.

"I think I would like that."

The hut was only a short distance away, for it was my duty to be within Achilles' reach. It was now dark, and no sounds of rut marred the night air. The revels had ended.

I allowed her to enter first and thought I heard a weary, resigned moan from her as the smell of wine and sex greeted both of us. Far from being heady, it made the already close quarters of the hut more stifling.

"Dianeira?"

The leather straps of our pallet creaked sharply, then stopped. "Yes?"

"We need not stay in here if it--"

"It does reek, doesn't it?"

I wondered what she truly felt; her frightened confession to me of what tormented her seemed as though it had come from another person. This Dianeira was not weak, but almost artificially hardened. I suppose it was no different from soldiers who jest about dark matters before and after battles to mask fear and sorrow.

"--if it reminds you--"

"I'm tired," she said, the words clipped, and I feared I had tread too closely to the truth. "I shall sleep here, even if you do not. It is the same as a stock shed to me - awful at first, but the nose becomes numb to it. Eventually."

A rumble of thunder rolled over the sea, whipping the waves and intensifying their break against the rocks, sands, and beached ships. The storm was building slowly, yet steadily.

"I do not want to sleep outside, and neither do you," she finished.

Another rumble followed quickly on the heels of the first one. Perhaps it would break sooner than I expected. The close and intensifying thunderclaps would be welcome; as it was, the two Myrmidons were snoring soundly and would have made it difficult to sleep on a normal, calm summer night. The thunder just might muffle them.

The pallet straps creaked again, and I waited for her to settle in comfort before following her. Lightning made its first appearance, and as I lay down on the hides, I heard her counting softly under her breath.

"How far away?" I asked.

"I don't know," she replied. "I was once told it means something, but I counted as a child to learn numbers and...not be frightened." She spoke this last piece more softly, as if ashamed of such a childish fear.

I nodded, and turned my head towards her. The gaps between the stakes and reed mats of the hut walls were narrow enough to shield occupants from sun and wind, but water and light knew no confinement. Another flash of lightning, and it cast a rapid spray of mottled shadows across her face.

The counting resumed, each number floating softly on the air until the roof above us began to vibrate, the hide battered by immortal tears falling from the heavens. For whom did they weep? Menelaus, Ajax and the men who had died today for Greece? Or was it for the Trojans, and only the gods knew of a future doom?

I felt her flinch and pull at the blanket. "It's leaking," she said.

A fat drop splashed against my face, followed by another. "So it is."

She tussled with the blanket, cursing softly as she struggled to find the edge of it in the dark. Then, with a fluid motion, it covered me like a shroud, and her breathing came louder to my ears.

It was like children playing a game, or travelers shielding themselves from the elements. We were swathed in solitude, separated from the outside world by only the thickness of a wool blanket, but I felt as though sturdy walls had been thrown up around us, a complete world that mirrored the one outside.

I could smell her breath, on it a mixture of herbs both bitter and sweet from the intoxicating brew. My blood stirred, and the space between us seemed intolerably immense.

_I want you. Can you not sense it? You must; you have a keen eye about you. Surely you cannot be so blind? Do not be frightened of me._

Even as I felt the urge to act on my desire, I tried to brutally thrust it away. I had been down this path before, and my mind was not in such a haze that I could only heed one call. Two voices within me vied for my final decision.

At that moment, as my hands itched to reach out to her, she spoke, forcing my mind elsewhere, plucking me from the brink onto which I tottered.

"I don't think the blanket will keep us dry much longer," she said. "We'll be sleeping in a puddle ere yet."

As soon as she spoke, the memory threatened to assail me. I had slept in blood-soaked bedclothes that distant night, the girl's essence congealing around me, strangling and suffocating my sleep for years after.

Were I sleeping alone, as I had done for years, I would have felt water seeping into the blankets and nothing else, but Dianeira was doing as much to remind me of my crime as provide hope that it was eternally behind me. I had made no advances, had not even desired to do so until tonight. Her fragility and her strengths had shown themselves to me tonight, and I wanted to guard them from harm and yet show her that she had made it possible for me to reclaim that part of myself I had long thought lost.

I wanted to hold her, show her, tell her. More than that, I wanted to hear her say that she had found the same for herself within me.

"My lord?"

I heard the guarded tone. I had been quiet, much too quiet, and only now I realized how tense my body was. Willing myself to relax, every muscle protested and my lip was rolled between my teeth to stifle any sound of pain that might come.

"Yes?" I asked, sounding calmer than I could have ever felt.

"You were going to tell me something outside Achilles' quarters, but I interrupted. What was it?"

I shrugged, an effort since I knew exactly what I had wanted to say, and the words were now lined up in my head as straight as soldiers. But I dared not speak them.

"I don't remember."

The blanket undulated around me as she shifted on the pallet. Her breathing was no louder, nor could I feel it against my cheek more intensely. She was still keeping a distance, and I wanted to thank her for it. My desire felt a tug of regret and frustration, but was soon relieved at the enforced inaction.

_Patience, Eudorus. Patience. There could be a battle tomorrow. Think of that, and that alone…_

After awhile, I realized that the roof above us no longer hummed under the beating rain. The blanket had shed some of the rain, but not all. I felt damp, and the wool was quickly beginning to smell. Shoving it gently aside, I discovered that the storm had lasted most of the night, and the clouds were only beginning to break. Dawn was fast approaching; through the gaps in the walls, I could see a red and purple aura along the horizon. The beginnings of a day fit for fighting. With luck, Achilles would be of similar mind now that he had his priestess.

The hut was slowly filling with light, and I looked down. Dianeira lay on her side, facing me. Her regular breathing indicated deep, even sleep and I noticed that the tendrils of hair at her temples and forehead were rain-damp and clung to her skin. Gooseflesh stood up on her bare arms from the cool morning air.

Slowly I left the bed, taking infinite care to not wake her, and retrieved another blanket from under the pallet. It was dry and had not been in the path of the small rivulets I now noticed had been cut through the sand of our hut floor. What a raging night it had been, but it was now calm. And so was I.

I shook out the blanket and let it fall over her gently. She still did not stir. Rounding the pallet, I knelt by her head and let my fingers play over her hair before bringing my lips to the soft crown and placing a silent kiss.

With a sense of peace and warmth flowing through every limb, I rose and left to meet the day.

Who knew what the day held for me, or anyone? This might be the last I would ever see or feel of her.

But the memory of her hair against my lips - and anticipation of doing so again - would arm me for battle as much as sword and shield.

It was foolish, but I believed it.


	5. Dianeira III

**Chapter 5**

_**Dianeira III**_

The arguing woke me. Two deep voices, sharp and relentless, ruined the first untroubled sleep that had seen fit to bless me for some time.

"Your feud with Agamemnon is tearing this army apart!"

Recognition prodded me firmly awake. Achilles was being taken to task, and I knew of only a few who would dare do such a thing. No, even Odysseus would not dare. I heard his methods were more subtle. This was the voice of thwarted ambition and desperation.

The boy Patroclus. I had often seen him as I went about my tasks. Quiet, but not overly thoughtful. For hours I had seen him at work on the leather armor, tending it with care in an effort to keep away the ravages of the sun and sea. Then, he had practiced and trained with the swords and spears he also honed. He sparred alone or with others, a sly glance over his shoulder the only betrayal that he sought an audience. I suspected he yearned for the approving eyes of one man alone.

Approval seemed a distant prospect as Achilles' voice sliced the air, winging harshly to my ears.

"I gave you an order, cousin. We leave at noon!"

Although his ire was directed at another, I nearly pulled the covers over my head like a rebuked child. But Patroclus was seized with a fury of his own and I found myself marveling at the suppressed anger and resentment that came tumbling forth. He wanted to fight for Greece and would let nothing prevent him. No doubt he, like myself, wondered why Achilles still refused to fight even with the priestess once again in his possession.

Then, like an echo, one word resounded above all those angry others.

_Noon._

The Myrmidons would be leaving. And which of their possessions would they take with them?

There was no question of sleep now, even if that brew I had drunk still clutched at me with potent fingers. But its grasp was fast-slipping.

I turned, expecting to see him laying beside me, but there was only an empty, cold space. The blankets showed no evidence of him; they had been rearranged around me and I was struck with a moment of confusion upon what I already felt.

There was no time to waste, and that prompted me as swiftly as a well-aimed kick. Tossing the blankets aside, the leather straps of the pallet whined in protest from my sharp movements. It woke the other women, who gazed at me with reddened, bleary eyes before sinking back into sleep. Their men had also gone.

I wondered why we had not been pressed into service, if the Myrmidons were to leave. Despite having only been encamped for a mere few days, there was plenty to uproot and pack in order to move on.

Staggering from the hut, I held my hand before my eyes as the morning sun stabbed at my vision and my temples throbbed with the beginnings of a headache.

Men strode along the beach, from hut to ship. I even saw Achilles amid the swarm, his robe fluttering about him as he made straightway for one of the ships.

Of Eudorus, I saw no trace and soon realized I was biting my lip in worry.

Why did I not flee? What was preventing me? It would be nothing at all to slither away and hide in the rocks like a snake. No eyes were upon me, and I was no one's charge but for one man, and he was nowhere to be seen.

He had promised I could rest all day, but he had not foreseen this, surely. He would come at any moment, appear from the ordered chaos of the black swarm that went from hut to ship with trained precision. If he caught me trying to escape, I couldn't imagine he would be angry. Only disappointed, even rejected.

It would be a sorry way to repay him for the safety he had so far guaranteed me.

_You idiotic fool. You owe him nothing._

This voice, which rebuked me for any tenderness I felt, irritated me. It was Pride and was almost a separate entity from me, ignorant of the true circumstances in which I found myself. This voice prodded me as to how I _should_ act, but I felt the urge to ruthlessly suppress It.

Had I listened to It as I first lay violated, I should no longer be drawing breath. The call to end my misery and dishonor had been strong, but I had ignored It, a part of me clinging to the belief that there would again be a bright dawn and my eyes would be glad of it. That day had happened sooner than I ever expected, and that Voice would never see me obey It. Perhaps that was prideful in itself, but I was of no mind to heed its command to run when It kept secret what I would flee to.

It did not know, and neither did I.

I backed into the hut, bringing my confusion with me. I would much rather have been charged with overseeing the decampment than wrestle with a prickly conscience.

Stumbling back to the pallet, I perched uneasily on the edge and clasped my hands together, but upon sight of the unconscious, worthless women sprawled before me, I snapped to my feet and began to gather goods, spoils and supplies in preparation.

I dropped the washing bowl into the sand when the angry sound of horns and drums filled the air.

The Trojans were attacking.

* * *

"Priam's finally bringing the battle away from the walls!"

"You fool, we're trapped by the sea if they hold their ground!"

"Let them try to cross our trench. They'll spit themselves by the hundreds.

There were many other such boasts and doubts as I dodged and weaved among the Greeks who were rushing to arms. I glanced up at the sky. Noon was still some time away, but Achilles could not hold to his plans. Not now. The Trojan host was at his doorstep as well as Agamemnon's. Turning tail to the sea was pure cowardice.

On I went, knowing each step took me farther from the only haven I had, but the threat of becoming lost, or swept up in an imminent attack became impossible to ignore any longer. With faltering steps, I fell back and ran in the direction from which I had come.

The sun was too bright, the clatter of swords and shields a din in my ears. Rational thought was becoming impossible and I dodged into the nearest hut. I cared not whose it was, only that it would offer some protection from the bloody battle that loomed.

The armor before me was Achilles -- I had seen it numerous times before -- but the man within it had only a passing resemblance to the Myrmidon commander's innate power and possession. He was putting on his helmet as I entered, and I saw his hands tremble as the metal shell slid over his blond, braided locks. I had the immediate, heavy suspicion that the boy was carrying out the threat he had made to his cousin not too long ago.

"Don't do this!"

The armored figure whirled around, and the eyes that peered at me through the faceguard were so intense that I wondered if I had been mistaken and Achilles was indeed before me. His posture was tense, almost feral, and I imagined only the eyes of Achilles could hold such lust for battle.

He did not reply. In one fluid gesture, he grabbed his sword and strode past me, without a single glance or acknowledgement. But I could now see well enough, and it was not Achilles who marched into battle.

As he passed the gathered ranks, I heard a proud and eager cry roar to the heavens. Their absent hero was again among them, and in the roar I heard a fervent vow to fight harder for victory than if the Mycenaean had lead them into battle.

I left the hut, my steps stiff and dazed. The blazing sun did little to warm me. What would happen when it was revealed -- and it _would_ be discovered -- that the Myrmidon hero was actually an untried boy?

Another roar went up further down the ranks, and I immediately recognized the growl of the bloodiest of veterans. The Myrmidons had been fooled as well, and I imagined that Eudorus had roared the loudest. He had waited so long for this moment, had wanted his commander to lead them into battle again and justify the journey to these sandy shores. Achilles' prideful descent had punished all around him, his captain most of all.

I bent my head and wept, my lips moving in silent prayer that he would return and I would not be left to another conqueror. It would be a hard battle and the Trojans, if they won, would want the Greek spoils. It mattered not that I had been considered Trojan goods only days earlier.

When I entered the hut, two anxious faces sought mine.

"What is going on?" one asked me.

I shook my head, mute, but the women were not still so drunk that my own visible fear was lost upon them. But when they realized I would not be forthcoming, they huddled together uneasily on the bed of hides, their eyes trained on the door.

A quick look around the hut, desperately seeking something to keep my hands and head busy. The childhood babble of virtues I had recited that day on the shore began to once again trip off my tongue. An unremarkable day it had been, or so I thought at the time. But now I found myself recalling it with regret that I had not made more of it.

I had barely looked at him, barely spoken. The reed mats had been so important to me, and when he sat in the sand beside me, my only desire had been for him to leave.

And he had obliged me, as he had done in everything. He had given my husband proper burial, and allowed me to mourn. He had kept me near him, yet had not trespassed. It was as much as I could ever hope for in the upended, vicious world that had claimed my future, and it all now stood on the edge of an imposter's sword.

Were I alone, I would have wept and cursed myself for a proud fool. But all this I kept in check as I sat down beside the pile of tunics I had abandoned the night before. The torrential rains that had fingered across the dirt floor had caught the edge of the pile and stained them.

_No matter._

The needle felt large and ungainly between my fingers, but I thrust it through the fabric and poured all my concentration into even stitches. The women soon left, whether out of discomfort or curiosity about what raged outside. I was now alone, and Time passed at a pace I could not reckon. My body refused to relax and the needle pricked my fingertips more than once.

I was about to hurl the mending across the hut after incurring another wound when I realized the world outside had fallen deathly quiet. No longer did I hear the distant clamor of battle, and the chaos that hovered on its skirts. A shout pierced the still, heavy air. Achilles.

"Patroclus!"

There was pain in that single name, and hope that the boy was only hiding and would emerge at this command. The intense silence confirmed my earlier fears that Patroclus would not succeed in his scheme, and this sorrow was lessened only slightly by the glad knowledge that the battle had ended without the beach being overrun. I cared little who had actually won. There had been no decisive battles as yet. Why should that change now?

I crept over to the door and started when I saw Eudorus fall into the sand like a felled tree, Achilles' arm still in the air from where he had struck his captain. With horror, I watched Achilles trod on Eudorus' throat, clearly demented and intent on murder. What could I do in the face of such rage? What protection could I offer?

Answering the question was unimportant. I bolted from the hut and had barely gone a dozen steps before two pairs of hands restrained me. The two women who had gladly left my presence were now holding me back, and one peered at me with a warning flashing from her kohl-rimmed eyes.

"He is a blinded beast," she said.

"I saw Patroclus before the battle," I whispered. "I tried to stop him!"

The woman's hands fell from me. "Then certainly do nothing. He would do more than crush your throat, if he knew."

If I knew that before, it was becoming ever clearer. Achilles' rage was finding release on those around him. The priestess was grasped by the throat and tossed to the ground when she dared to restrain him, and when he grabbed a sword, the gathered Myrmidons gave him a wide berth as he stalked away. The grand robe he wore and his finely twisted locks were at odds with the grief that marked his face. He was dressed as a conqueror, but defeat was all he tasted.

Eudorus still lay in the sand, watching Achilles depart with a sadness I recognized all too well.

I tore away from the other woman's grasp and rushed to him, the edge of my gown already in my hand to wipe away the blood that still clung to his lips. His eyes widened at my approach, and I wanted to believe the sadness fell away at my presence. At least a little.

I collapsed beside him, torn between anger at Achilles and relief that I had not been robbed of yet another one dear to me. For he _was_ dear to me. The sight of him so wounded by one he himself loved pained me more than I would have thought possible.

When he made to rise, I attempted to prevent him, but quickly realized that he would not wish to remain prone under the embarrassed, mortified eyes of the men he commanded. With firm, understanding hands, I helped him to his feet and felt a warmth bloom deep when he leaned again me in a silent, unseen plea for support. I wiped the blood away from his mouth with my fingers, deciding the gown was too coarse.

He looked down at me, saying nothing, but his eyes searched mine and I felt his breath quicken against my cheek, bringing with it the scent of blood.

"Let me help you," I said, slipping an arm around his back and steering him towards his quarters.

I felt him exhale, a measured release that spoke of all I had learned of his character. This was a tender, fragile thing; he knew it, and even I was unsure if what I was doing would invite unforeseen troubles further down the path. But I was no stranger to the lust in men's eyes, and in these confused blue depths before me, I saw only the slightest trace.

I knew him, or felt I did. And it did not frighten me. If he wanted me, he would have me. In time. What a fine day it would be to again give myself of my own accord.

It had already begun, and the pain was bittersweet and beautiful.

* * *

Thanks to LazyChestnut and ConcreteHole for your reviews. C'mon, y'all others! Feedback's not like giving blood, although I _will_ give you a sandwich and a juice box if you so kindly review. ;-)

There's one short chapter left.


	6. Eudorus III

**Chapter 6**

_Eudorus III_

So much has happened these past days that, were I given time unchecked to recount them, I doubt I could. Skirmishes have taken the place of battles and several have come and gone, first our side claiming victory, then the other. They have killed our heroes, our leaders, and only today Achilles slew their beloved Prince.

And still, there is no end. Or if so, then I cannot see it. What tomorrow will bring, I can only make a blind guess.

In the face of such disquiet, the rock certainties become ever more precious. The affection of the farmer's widow has been a prize I never sought to claim, but nevertheless I sense that it is mine. This morning, I woke to find her watching me, her eyes questioning and concerned as they lingered on my bruised face.

"You left last night," she said.

"King Priam crept into camp to claim Hector's body," I said. "Achilles had me fetch horse and chariot so he could go back to his city in state."

"His honor shows itself a little late," she muttered.

I was not in the mood to rebuke her for the harsh, unfair assessment. She had shown no particular love for the ruling family of Troy, but Hector's defilement had troubled her. As his body had lain in the broiling sun all day, not two dozen steps from my quarters, she plotted her path well away from the gruesome spectre. With more subtlety, I had attempted to do the same. The sight of one so mighty brought so low would have troubled anyone who had even passing knowledge of the man, and I had been honored by his acquaintance, ill-fated though it was.

Yes, his brutal treatment at Achilles' hands troubled me, but it was not my place to speak of it. What was done was done. He was back within his city's walls, and would be burned with due honor and mourning as soon as night fell.

That would be the end of it.

"He has purged the poison that Patroclus' death caused," I offered in excuse. "It seemed a small and fitting favor to give the old man." I don't know if she agreed with me, but she spoke no more about it and sat up with every gesture indicating the day was already late, even though I could see the sun barely coloring the dawn.

"Lie here awhile," I murmured. "There is no need to rise now."

She turned to look at me, her neck twisting sharply enough so that I began to wonder if I had been too hasty to assume her affection. I had no ill designs, at least none that I would act upon. But her hesitation was short-lived, and she laid a hand on the bandage that was tied around my shoulder..

"Would you not like me to see to that instead?"

The pressure from her fingers, though light, set it to throbbing. I had incurred the injury during the same skirmish that had lost Patroclus his life, but had paid it no heed until I had staggered into the hut by Dianeira's side. As soon as the shock and pain of Achilles' blow faded, this more pressing injury had reared its painful head.

As I struggled into a sitting position, I glimpsed a contented, assured smile appear and quickly vanish, her smug air that of a parent who has successfully manipulated a stubborn child. If she was that keen on tending me, I would offer no resistance. Soldiers know how to treat wounds such as this, but the ministrations are not nearly as pleasant.

She picked at the knot with her fingers and unwound the bandage with gentle insistence at the dried blood that adhered to the fabric. I winced, but her response was merely to raise her eyebrows in amused disbelief.

"I doubt it hurt that much,," she said, winding the stained linen into a ball and tossing it aside.

"I have felt better," I replied, unrepentant.

"You were laying on it in your sleep not long ago."

"Not so!" I accused, genuinely startled. Had I done so, I would surely have woken. I was not greatly exaggerating the pain the wound was causing me.

When she ducked her head in renewed concentration on my wound, a secret smile on her lips, I realized she was taking great delight in provoking me.

"It does not look angry," she commented, her manner now serious. She ran a finger above the ragged stitches. "I have never sewn a person before, but it is curiously like cloth! In a way." She continued to peer at her handiwork with a discerning, critical eye. "Cloth does not yelp, however."

"Nor did I," I retorted, gamely returning her good-natured barb.

Her spirit had only been momentarily bowed by affliction; she was slowly returning to the woman I suspected she was before being ripped from her home. She had hinted several times at a differing of temperaments between her and her dead husband, and I had not restricted her in any manner, so I flattered myself that this resilient, good-humored woman was the genuine Dianeira, the farmer's wife of peacetime.

Perhaps even her husband had never seen her thus. The thought warmed me immensely.

I watched her as she crawled from the bed and retrieved her arsenal of water, salve and linen. She spared our fellow habitants nary a glance as she did so, though she took noticeable care to not waken them.

When she again sat on the bed beside me and set about cleaning the mended wound, I said, "Were I assured of staying, I would make arrangements for other quarters for us." I gave the sleeping pile of humanity a nod. It was an attractive alternative; however, the effort of moving outweighed a possible command from Achilles that we remain for an extended time. There was also a likelihood that we would leave Troy entirely at a moment's notice.

Her eyes followed mine and she nodded in agreement. She dabbed at my arm a final time and smeared foul-smelling ointment over it. "It is quite trying at times," she said. "I never had sisters and these women are proving I was blessed to have an unfruitful mother. They are content to lay about and idly wait for their men to return. It's shameful and useless."

"No brothers?"

Her gaze flitted sidelong at me and, though she smiled, it was undeniably pained. "One."

"Tell me about him."

She seemed to resist my request with a tightening of her lips, but relented as she busied her hands anew with the bandage.

"I don't know where he is," she said. "He always wanted to be a soldier and left home for Troy. Several years ago there were some skirmishes with the desert peoples, and I imagine he fought in those. If he was still alive. I last saw him before Krios took me away." She ripped the ends of the bandages and tied it in secure knots.

"You're wondering if he's been killed in one of these battles."

She shook her head. "No. I stopped thinking about that long ago. He never saw fit to find me, and he knew where Krios took me. I had no such knowledge of him. It was his burden to maintain a bond, not mine."

I detected nothing of affected sorrow or an unspoken plea for pity, but I felt compelled to offer it by virtue of what she had already endured.

"Would you want to find him again?" I asked.

"Of course not."

This response was startling, and my surprise was plain upon my face. Perhaps I was naïve to think that the call to hearth and family would overwhelm any woman.

"I have chosen to not dwell on the past," she went on. "You have done so as well, I imagine."

This last was spoken with obvious meaning, hope lilting the final word. She was intent on the present, and I, through luck or unwitting design, was now the sphere within which she planned and breathed.

"Yes," I replied, laying my hand over hers where they rested in her lap. She did not pull away. "My past is truly past."

She smiled, and when she again got to her feet to do all manner of tasks that were obviously pressing to her, but invisible to my eyes, I saw that her bronzed skin could not hide the blush alight in her cheeks.

* * *

It was all decided. This war, more than any other mercenary venture so far, had found me little more than a bystander as other more powerful men controlled events. I was no stranger to wiles and tactics that called upon brains more than brawn, but it was not a role to which I was well-suited. Odysseus left me in awe at his ability to look at something simple and see complexity, to take a hopeless situation and find advantage.

A child's toy could bring about the downfall of Troy. Imagine that. He sat beside a man carving a toy horse, and from that little seed has grown the mighty tree. I see it now, looming darkly on the shore above a swarm of torches and fires and the shadows of men intent on building an immense, hollow horse before dawn's fingers encompass the sky.

Dianeira drew up beside me, her arms straining at a tightly-tied bundle of spoils. "I think this is the last of it," she said. "The Myrmidon ship is only lacking the Myrmidons."

She said it with humor, but the mood along the entire shore was heavy with anxiety and disappointment.

"I have never seen a blacker spirit among them," I muttered. "Every man among us wants to stay and fight rather than be put out to sea."

She dropped the bundle at her feet with a relieved sigh and sat upon it, surveying the activity that swirled about us.

"I don't see how it will succeed," she murmured. "Packing themselves into a rickety horse and hoping the Trojans will be fooled? They will have to remain in the baking sun for hours, without noise or complaint. It is insane."

"Odysseus is known for his unconventional ploys," I said, "but he believes in his ability to read the minds of men, and he thinks he has Priam marked for a superstitious man. And I believe he is right."

She looked up at me. "Will you disobey and remain behind?"

As much as it pained me to do so, I shook my head. "No, I will follow Achilles' order to leave. I understand his reasons. There is a certain amount of dishonor in such deception."

"It will be nothing short of slaughter," she said in audible disgust, rising and hefting the bundle into her arms again with some difficulty.

I took it from her and staggered slightly under the weight myself. "You must be strong as a mule to have carried this as far as you did."

"Krios did hitch me to the plow one spring when our ox came up lame and we had to kill it," she said. "I felt like a beast, but the furrows were never straighter, I must say."

I sensed a ploy of her own at work. "Your words become light when I am at my darkest," I confessed. "I have noticed it."

She shrugged in embarrassment that she had been found out. "You have a fine laugh, Eudorus," she said. "I like to hear it."

"And better when it is you who makes me laugh?"

"Of course," she said, more airily. "I think I have a deft hand for it."

In the torchlight, I could see her smiling, but she quickly sobered, as if suddenly feeling such lightheartedness had no place while a city's murder was being plotted around us.

"It will be dawn in a few hours," she said.

"Achilles wanted us well out to sea and over the horizon by then. The Trojans will come to the shore directly when their scouts report we have left."

We proceeded down to the shoreline, where our black-sailed ship lay beached. With each step, I felt the disappointment and anger at being forced to leave fade into a heavier burden. Before, I had felt robbed of power and responsibility. With his order for me to pack the ship and take the Myrmidons away, I felt Achilles had denied of my right and ability to exercise my fullest skills that lay in arms and battlefield prowess.

But now I was walking towards a greater charge, and I wondered if Achilles had judged me aright. This would require so much more of me, and I was uncertain if I was up to the task.

"Eudorus."

It was faintly spoken, and at first I thought my ears had played a trick, but Dianeira's insistent hand on my wrist stopped me in my path. She gestured behind us and I turned.

Achilles stood there, his own worries clear upon his face. He still was mourning Patroclus, but the haunted thirst for vengeance had been sated. He was embarking on this scheme of Odysseus' only to retrieve the priestess once again and, I suspected, end this pointless war to the best of his ability. It would be brutal and of dubious honor to slay a people in their beds, but it was a distasteful task that had to be done if the Greeks were to return home in any number. Patroclus' own devotion to the entire army as one worthy man had overcome his cousin's narrow concerns about the Myrmidons alone. I fervently hoped it was so. If the boy's death had been completely in vain, it would count among the greatest tragedies of this war.

"You know what you must do, Eudorus?" he asked, approaching.

I nodded. "Yes, my lord, though I would still stay beside you if you asked it of me."

Achilles shook his head, amused. "Eudorus, that is exactly why I have given you the command of the Myrmidons. I know it could not be in more capable, dedicated hands."

"When you rejoin us, I hope you will not regret your decision."

Achilles nodded. "What drove me to these shores was the belief that I would die here and achieve the greatest glory a man could ever win, but I'm beginning to believe I came here only to find the woman I needed." At this, his gaze shifted to Dianeira. "I trust you found yours."

I hesitated, perhaps in the hope that she would speak and put into words what I believed we both felt. She was more apt at that than I. But she said nothing, the presence of Achillles silencing her.

"Well?" Achilles prompted, directing all his attention on Dianeira. "Did I misstep when I gave you into his care?"

For all his apparent interest in my welfare, and hers, his tone brooked no disagreement. I sensed his impatience, even fear that he would leave this life with all manner of frayed ends hanging loose and unknotted. It was then that I realized he believed the prediction of his mother, that he would die on these shores and it was Troy that would hold the tomb of Achilles, not his native land of Phthia.

"I see you are as devoted to Eudorus as he is to you," Dianeira said, her voice unsteady in the face of his expectations. "Trust me when I say that affection is not lacking in me."

Achilles looked at me quizzically, his confusion deepening when he saw me smiling.

"Obviously you know her enough to take that as an ardent declaration of sorts," he said, cocking his head.

"I do," I said.

"And it is," Dianeira chimed.

Achilles held out his hands in satisfaction. "Then it is time for you to leave, Eudorus, and lead." He advanced and embraced me as well as he was able, given that my arms were loaded with the bundle of spoils. A kiss on the brow, and he was gone, retreating to the campfire where Odysseus was overseeing the final stages of his wooden horse.

Dianeira exhaled audibly. "I am terrified." When I turned to her, questioningly, she added, "I have never been further from home than where I stand right now."

"You will see many homes, Dianeira," I said. "We are soldiers, and there are many battlefields that will feel our step. You will stay with me?"

She did not immediately speak, and although my question was an invitation for her to gracefully leave me if she chose, I hoped she would not take it.

"That is what Achilles asked me, only in a different way," she said. "You heard my answer. Or will your first command be to have me say it again?"

"You take great delight in saying things like that. I'm glad of it, because I will need you to keep me as I am. This command could change me."

"It will," she said confidently. "Both of us, and for the better."

We continued down the shore to the waiting boat. The other Myrmidons were gathered, many with regretful eyes turned towards Odysseus' masterpiece of wily craft. Others looked at me with wary uncertainty. They knew me as soldier, and captain, not as leader. They would learn, and I would not disappoint them. Or Achilles.

The gods give him peace wherever he now rests his head. As dawn creeps across the sky with rosy fingers and our ship plies its way through the sea towards our next unseen battlefield, I look over at the sleeping woman curled beside me. Her face is in sated repose and her cheeks still hold the flush from a joining that had been more than two bodies and whispered, urgent words.

It was time, a moment we both realized and were eager to grasp. The troubles of Troy had been left behind, things unfolding before us new and enticing. We had looked at each other and burned to place our foot on that path as one being. This we did, with no fear or hesitation.

Try as I might, I now cannot see the past. She holds only the future, and what a gift she has given me.

**THE END**

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Thank you as always to LazyChestnut & ConcreteHole/Kat for the reviews, my two vocal Eudorus co-horts. You're the reason this story got finished!

As for you vast silent majority, thanks for reading my latest Eudorus story. It's no secret I love him tremendously, and I've tried to do my part to give characters other than Achilles and Briseis some fics to their name in this fandom. I hope my OFC wasn't too overbearing. I have a weird affinity for them but never go into the realm of self-insert. Except perhaps for the whole farmer angle. I'm a rural girl in heart and location. Some things tend to seep through the process.

I'll be out of fanfiction for the foreseeable future. I've got an original story that I've been working on and researching since 1994 when I was a wee freshman in college. I think I might have the final version lined up in my head and ready to write. As much as I love Troy and Lord of the Rings, etc., I adore my Victorian theatre lovelies even more. It will be a novel on the actress Minna K. Gale (1865-1944) who performed with Edwin Booth (John Wilkes' brother) and Lawrence Barrett from 1885-1891. She was ambitious and made a few serious missteps in her life and I've always found her fascinating. I'm on Fictionpress under Brighton Rock, so if you're interested, that's where you can find that story in the future.


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